America's favourite television personality, Barack Obama, returns to primetime tonight, holding his second news conference as president in the East Room of the White House, following days of negotiations with the main TV networks to ensure maximum viewership. He'll doubtless focus on building public support for his multi-trillion-dollar budget, and must respond appropriately to ongoing anger in the country, which focuses on those AIG bonuses: there's been a sense, ever since the House of Representatives voted to tax the bonuses at 90% last week, that the fury the White House helped stoke might be getting out of control. Events like tonight's are always an important test of the media's credibility, too: will reporters get tough with the president, or use up valuable minutes with questions about sports? (The White House press corps is warming up as I write.) The news conference may be bumping American Idol from its regularly scheduled slot, but Obama's direct-to-the-people media-saturation strategy over the last few days seems to be helping shore up his approval ratings. Join me here tonight for a thrilling minute-by-minute liveblog, tinged with an appropriate amount of British stoicism in the face of global apocalypse, starting a little before 8pm eastern time/midnight UK time.